Ray Milland is a really exciting actor. He has that incredibly open and honest face which is so perfect for films like 'Dial M for Murder' where he plays a really horrible character. Thankfully he is playing the hero in this, and very well he does it too.
Stephen Neale has just been released from a mental institution in wartime England during the Blitz. Whilst waiting for a train to London he stumbles upon what looks like an innocent village fete where one of the games is to guess the weight of a cake. A local woman offers to read his palm, and also bizarrely drops into the conversation the amount of the cake which will win him the competition. Stephen takes the cake to leave, but the villagers are having other ideas and try to persuade him to give it back soon after (yes, you guessed it!) Dan Duryea appears and speaks to the fortune teller.
From then on Stephen is fighting for his sanity and his life.
It does seem completely weird when you put it into words, but there is something very frightening about this film. Especially when we are confronted by various people that we really trust who turn out to be evil. Ray Milland is excellent as the thwart and paranoid man who feels like his past maybe catching up with him, but he doesn't understand how. Dan Duryea is yet again excellent in the moderate part that he has been given and really lights up the scene when he appears. The backdrop of the Blitz really adds to the unease and feeling that you should be whispering everything in case you are heard.
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